The Collected jq-6

by Brett Battles

  No! Dammit!

  Though most of his carbon-fiber prosthetic was purely mechanical and undamaged by the electroshock, the excess electricity had gotten to the emergency beacon and destroyed it.

  For the first time, Nate began to despair. Though he’d known there was a chance the beacon had already stopped working because of the bolt, he’d still been hopeful. Now he knew whatever help it might have brought wasn’t coming, and if he was going to get out of his situation alive, it would be up to him alone.

  Given his current physical condition, he wasn’t a big fan of his odds.

  CHAPTER 41

  Quinn stood on the balcony at the back of their room and looked out at the city. While the sun was still hovering above the western horizon, lights had begun to flicker on here and there. He heard the sound of a jet engine not far away as a plane roared down the airport runway, and from below the sound of cars moving toward home or work or who knew where.

  The sliding door opened behind him, and Orlando stepped out.

  “Anything?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “Some of the storage systems the radar data’s on leave a lot to be desired, so that’s slowed things down.”

  He nodded, returning his gaze to the city.

  “What did you say to Liz?” Orlando asked, coming up beside him.

  He looked at her, concerned. “Why?”

  “It’s just, well, she said something nice about you.”

  “Oh, she did, did she? And what was that?”

  Before Orlando could answer, Quinn’s phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the display. It was a video call.

  “It’s Misty,” he said.

  As they headed back inside, he pushed ACCEPT. Misty appeared on the screen.

  “Hi,” he said. “Was beginning to worry about you.”

  “Sorry. It, uh, took me a bit longer than I’d thought it would,” she said.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Yes.”

  Not maybe. Not even I think so. But yes.

  The others crowded around him as he said, “Tell me.”

  “First I checked on jobs you and Berkeley shared. There were six.”

  Exactly the number Quinn remembered.

  “You and Curson were on seven,” she went on. “And Curson and Berkeley had ten in common.”

  Twenty-three jobs. That was a lot to sift through, but better than it could have been. “Maybe if we go through them one at a time, something will stand out.”

  “Wait. I’m not through. At first there didn’t seem to be any jobs the three of you were on together.”

  “That’s because there weren’t any jobs the three of us worked on together.”

  “You wouldn’t have known.”

  He hesitated a moment. “A blind job?” Blind jobs were the kind where most of the players didn’t come in contact with each other. Quinn had tried to avoid those as much as possible.

  “Not a blind job.”

  “Then I’m not following you, because we were never on the same job. I would remember that.”

  “You don’t remember because you didn’t actually work the job.”

  He frowned. “Now you’ve lost me completely.”

  “This particular job, you were originally assigned to it, but the date was pushed and ended up conflicting with something else Peter needed you for.”

  That made more sense. Though it didn’t happen often, Peter had moved his schedule around sometimes. “So what job are we talking about?”

  “Does Isla de Cervantes ring a bell?”

  He thought for a moment, then nodded.

  Four years earlier, Peter had called him with an assignment. The only thing he told Quinn at the time was the location: Isla de Cervantes. “Straightforward,” Peter had said. “You’ll get the details next week.” Only the details never came. A few days later, Peter called back, reassigning him to a job in Oslo.

  But the memory wasn’t why the nape of Quinn’s neck was tingling. It was because Isla de Cervantes was in the same zone Nate’s beacon was in.

  “I remember,” he said. “So if I hadn’t been removed, all three of us would have been on this job?”

  “Yes. It’s the only time your names overlap on anything Peter was running.”

  “Who else was on it?”

  “Three others. Four, if you count the man who replaced you. Geoffrey Saban was team leader, and Oren Karper and Zach Lanier were ops.”

  “And the new me?”

  “Michael Stallard.”

  A competent cleaner, not quite Quinn’s level, but…

  He looked over at Orlando. While Stallard and the first two names Misty had mentioned weren’t on their potential-missing list, Lanier’s was.

  Orlando immediately understood what he wanted her to do. She walked several feet away, pulling out her phone.

  “What was the job?” Quinn asked Misty.

  “Termination of a man named Javier Romero.”

  Romero? Quinn ran the name through his mind a few times, but came up blank.

  “Any mention of why he was important?”

  “No. The file only contains what was necessary for the job. There are a few notes at the end in Peter’s personal code. They indicate that there was some kind of problem. No mention of what that might have been, though.”

  “Do you think it’s somewhere else in the files? Was there a photo of this Romero?”

  “I, um, took pictures of the entire file.”

  “You did? Can you send them to me?”

  Her face tensed. “I probably shouldn’t.”

  “Misty, all I care about is finding out what’s going on, and bringing our friends home. Once I’m done with the file, I’ll trash it. No one will ever see it.”

  Looking unsure, she said, “You promise?”

  “Of course I do. You know me. You know you can trust me.”

  She turned to the side in thought, then looked back and nodded. “Okay, but you have to destroy it later. And don’t say anything to Peter. I’ll tell him I gave it to you.”

  “Whatever you want to do,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll call you if we need anything else.”

  “And when you find him, too.”

  “Yeah. When we find him, too.”

  As soon as he hung up, he looked over at Orlando. She had moved into the bathroom entrance and was talking into her phone in a low tone.

  “Could that be where Nate is?” Liz asked.

  He turned to her. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “Isla de Cervantes. Could that be where he is?”

  “No way to know yet.”

  “But…but…” She stepped over to the desk and turned the screen on Orlando’s laptop so Quinn could see it. “Look. Isla de Cervantes is right along this track.” She pointed at a spot between Cuba and Puerto Rico, a bit south of the red line representing the possible flight path of the cargo plane. “It’s right here.”

  “I know. But-” He stopped as his phone vibrated multiple times. Not a call, but messages. He watched them come in. There were twenty-nine when they finally stopped, all from Misty, the images of pages from the report.

  Across the room, Orlando ended her call and made another. Quinn held up his hands, silently asking her what was going on.

  She covered her phone and mouthed, “One minute.”

  While he waited, Quinn brought up the first image from the report, scanned quickly through it, and opened the second. When he neared the bottom of the page, he stopped on a photograph and enlarged it. The picture was of a vigorous man who looked to be in his early sixties, speaking to an unseen crowd. His body language oozed determination and conviction. Someone had written in pen just above the man: ROMERO.

  So this was the target.

  Though Romero was the main focus, there were others in the picture, gathered in a group behind the man, watching him. Some had names written above their heads, too. He scanned each face, stopped suddenly, and used his fingers to zoom in.<
br />
  Well, well, well.

  Not wanting to completely believe his eyes just yet, Quinn went to his saved photos and retrieved the one of the bald man in Bangkok. He switched back and forth between it and the group shot.

  Neither image was perfect, but they didn’t need to be. There was no doubt that the bald guy was also the man in the other shot, with the name HARRIS written over his head.

  “I appreciate it,” Orlando said.

  Quinn turned around in time to see her hang up her phone.

  “The reason Saban and Karper weren’t on our list is because they’re both dead,” she said. Quinn raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask the obvious question, she added, “Job-related. Eighteen months apart. No apparent connection.”

  “Lanier?” he asked.

  “While no one’s reported him missing, he hasn’t been seen in a couple weeks.”

  “That sounds like missing to me,” Daeng said.

  “Me, too,” Quinn agreed. “What about Stallard?”

  “He’s sitting at home. Has an assignment starting next Tuesday, but says if we need him for anything before then, he’s available.”

  “Replace Stallard’s name with yours,” Daeng said, “and that accounts for everyone.”

  Yes. It did. Nice and neat.

  “Here’s something else you’re going to like,” Quinn said. He showed them the photo he found.

  “That cinches it,” Orlando said. “No question.”

  “None at all.”

  “So does that mean Nate is on this Isla de Cervantes?” Daeng asked.

  With a quick look to his sister, acknowledging she’d been right, Quinn said, “He’s in that direction somewhere, so that’s where we need to go.”

  “I’ll get us some tickets out of here,” Orlando said.

  She took a step toward her computer, but Quinn stopped her.

  “Liz can do that.” He looked over at his sister. “You can, right?”

  “Sure,” she said, surprised. “Of course.”

  His eyes back on Orlando, he said, “You and I need to find out what we can about this Harris guy.”

  They sent out copies of the new picture of the man to several of their trusted contacts, this time with the name David Harris attached.

  “There’s a flight to Mexico City leaving in an hour and a half,” Liz announced after a few minutes. “It’ll arrive in time to connect with a flight to Puerto Rico. There are dozens of ways from there to get to Isla de Cervantes.”

  “Book it,” Quinn told her.

  She glanced nervously at him. “Three tickets? Or four?”

  A pause. “Four.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Nate woke with a start.

  At first, he thought someone had come for him again, and he was about to be dragged away to some other round of torture. Waterboarding this time, or maybe something even more medieval, like the rack.

  But it had only been the nightmares playing in his head. His cell was empty, the door firmly shut.

  He lay on his stomach, letting the adrenaline coursing though his body dissipate. Once his heart rate had come back to normal, he sat up. The roar of the pain along his back had dropped a notch from cataclysmic supernova to titanic molten lava eruption. The spasms caused by the electricity, though, seemed to have stopped altogether.

  Gingerly, he rose to his feet, felt his way across the dark room to the toilet, and relieved himself.

  Time was a problem. His internal clock was misfiring, one moment telling him it was ten p.m., and the next, time for breakfast. He knew, though, that it was late, or, rather, early, because no light seeped in through the vent. The corridor lights so far had only been off at night.

  The vent. There was something about the vent. A dream he had…no, no. An idea, as he’d been falling asleep.

  A potential way out.

  With growing excitement, he retrieved the bolt from where he’d stuck it in the mattress after using it last time, ran his fingers along the wall until he reached the door, and sat on the floor.

  Given that no one had come after him the last time he removed the vent cover, he decided it was unlikely there was a camera in the room, night vision-equipped or otherwise, so he didn’t even bother concealing his actions as he removed his prosthetic leg. As soon as his stub eased out of the cup, he sighed with relief. He had worn the leg far too long without taking a break. Even toughened with calluses as his stub had become, it felt raw and worn. He allowed himself just a few seconds to rub his hand over it and massage the tissue.

  Using the bolt, he removed the back frame of the vent again. This time he didn’t tie any strings to the front. Without any light, it would have been a struggle at best to run them over the slats and snag them back so he could tie them off, but he wasn’t worried. His previous experience had shown him the front wouldn’t fall out.

  Once the back frame was free, he set it on the floor, out of the way. He felt along the slats embedded in the front half until he found a loose spot. Taking extra care, he worked his fingers into the space until he was able to wrap them around the corridor side of the slat.

  Next, he used his free hand to push forward on each corner in succession until the frame popped out of the hole. He laid it quietly on the corridor floor.

  With the hole now unblocked, he shoved his arm as far through it as possible, and reached across the front of the door until his hand came in contact with the locking bar that ran up and down the outside. He moved his hand upward, already knowing the door handle was too high for him to reach, but giving it a try anyway. After confirming his limitations, he pulled all the way back inside the cell and grabbed his prosthetic.

  This was where his whole plan lived or died. Holding the leg by the ankle, he fed it through the rectangular opening. It was tight, but he was able to squeeze the whole thing through.

  Closing his eyes, he pictured the front of the door as he turned the leg so that it was vertical, and moved it toward the door handle. When he passed the point where he thought he should have reached it, he shifted the leg to the side, and pushed up. He met no resistance, so he tried again. This time the cup struck home.

  Down and vertical meant locked. Up ninety degrees to a horizon, unlocked.

  It took him three tries to get the cup setting just right against the handle. The first two tries resulted in the leg shooting out away from the door, both times nearly causing him to lose hold of the ankle. On the third try, he felt the handle turn and heard the long metal rods slip along the side of the door. When the handle stopped moving, he gave the door a tentative push. It gave at the bottom, but the top held firm.

  He placed the end of the prosthetic against the handle and shoved again. There was resistance, then finally a soft pop as the top rod slipped free of its locking slot. Immediately, the door swung outward a few inches.

  Nate quickly retrieved his leg and remounted it against his sore stub. As soon as it was securely in place, he exited his cell, closed his door, and reengaged the metal rods. He replaced the front frame of the vent in the hole. Though he couldn’t see his handiwork in the dark, he was confident the door looked unchanged, and until someone opened it, there would be no reason to think he wasn’t still inside.

  To his left, the corridor led to the doorway he’d been taken through every time he left his cell. On the two occasions he’d been unhooded, he’d seen that the door was similar to the cell doors in its metal makeup, but that there was no corresponding locking rod on either side. To the right was the unknown.

  He hesitated. Should he open the others’ cells? Get them out, too?

  He couldn’t just leave them there.

  Find the way out first, then get them.

  He decided to go in the direction he’d never been taken. But before he took his third step-

  “Who’s out there?” a voice whispered.

  Nate froze, sure a guard had quietly entered the corridor and heard him moving around.

  “I know you’re there. Who is that?�
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  It wasn’t a guard, Nate realized.

  He turned the other way, and tiptoed until he was outside the occupied cell farthest from his own.

  “Peter?” he whispered, leaning down toward the vent.

  “Hello, Nate.”

  As Nate had suspected, Peter had figured out who he was the first time they’d spoken.

  “How did you get out of your cell?” Peter asked.

  “Creative use of limbs.”

  A grunt. “All right, and how are you getting out of the hallway?”

  “I was about to have a look around. As soon as I figure it out, I’ll come back and get the rest of you.”

  “Might be better if you get out and go for help.”

  “I’m not leaving you all here.”

  Peter was quiet for a moment. “They made a mistake bringing you here.”

  “And don’t think I’m not going to let Quinn know about it.”

  “No. He would have been a mistake, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Residue of an old job neither of you were on, that’s all.”

  “Then why the hell-”

  “Doesn’t matter. Go find the way out.”

  Nate wanted to know more, but Peter was right. Now wasn’t time for a leisurely chat. “I won’t be gone long.”

  “Good luck.”

  Keeping one hand in front of him, and the other on the wall, Nate made his way down the corridor as quickly as he dared. For the first thirty feet, he came across other doors he guessed led into rooms similar to the one he’d been in, but all their locks were open, so he knew they were empty.

  A few yards past the last door, the passageway turned to the left. In the distance, he could see a thin glowing line low to the floor.

  A door, he thought. Another way out. But did the light mean there was someone on the other side?

  Stepping lightly, he approached the light. It was a door all right. There was enough illumination for him to make out that much. But unlike the other doors, this one was made of wooden planks held together with iron strips at the top and bottom. It looked old, perhaps not as old as the building itself, but a century or two wasn’t out of the question.